How do you split a coconut in half?

Hit Gilligan in the head with it.

Requires a large knife-machete or meat cleaver and a large cutting board or against another hard surface; either strike longitudinally or use with a rubber mallet. once a split opens about 4–6” or so you can force pry it open. Warning: juice spills / gushes out 2–4 cups depending on size of coconut.

At a resort I stayed at in the tropics, theservice staff cracked them open daily, and if using it as a serving container, cut off at the top only to create a lid (only works with the large green-husked ones). The smaller brown ones are a bit harder to crack, and I’ve seen people just drill those ones open with a power drill and bit (mitre bit?)...

hack saw

Here is its own little site; http://www.howtoopenacoconut.com/index.html

The writing is dreadful, but the instructions and pictures are clear and easy to follow, particularly if you want to save the coconut milk. (The guy may be a good prep chef, but boy, does he need an editor.)

(miter)

I wikihow’d this last year and got the best directions EVER.

what did you search for rowenaz? I can’t find it

” How do you cut open a coconut?” on wikihow
or these videos
http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Open-Up-a-Coconut-7846

http://www.howcast.com/videos/726-Episode-5-Produce-Picker-Podcast-How-To-Open-a-Coconut

@sndfreQ. 2 – 4 cups??? I have never got more than about 1/2 cup milk out of one!
– one coconut shredded is about enough for 3 coconut cream pies.
– if you want the shell exactly halved, best to use a saw.

I think it depends on how you buy the coconut – white, as in the first video, or brown, in the second.

@greylady: that was for the green kind; the ones in Mexico and in the tropics in particular…Jamaica, Philippines, Hawaii etc. I’ve had made into piña coladas drunk right out of the shell.

@rowenaz: brown

sndfreQ- That must have been wonderful! Does the milk taste about the same from both kinds?

seems to be more watery in the green ones than the brown; the brown ones seem to have a more fragrant oil, and the more characteristic white meat that you see ground into the shavings.

Thanks! I will surely try one of those green ones if I ever get a chance. I shred up a couple a year of the brown kind, just to make pies and coconut macaroons. It is worth the effort.

You can’t split a coconut in half. You have to split it in two halves.

Touché Astro, touché

@Rowenaz: I tried to split it into TWO halves with the blunt side of the knife, but it won’t work.

Do you lot think if I used a hammer and hit a srewdriver in it, that will work?

I don’t know – there are people who put a corkscrew in the eyeholes, to get the milk out, and then hammer, but I have never had the blunk knife bit not work for me. As you tap forcefully while rotating the coconut, the sound actually changes, and you know that it’s cracked. Hammers and nails seem like too much work, plus I don’t want to eat something that the nail has touched. Hit harder with the blunt edge of a bigger knife. I have a 30” rusty cleaver, which I never use, but keep for the flat side to crush stuff – that cleaver works perfectly for whacking the coconuts.

Tell it a funny joke?

@Rowenaz: I think the problem is, is that I don’t have any really strong knives and I don’t want to break the ones I have.

@Comedian-day trip to Chinatown! (at least that’s where I bought my machete!)...

See there really is only one reason why I want to split the coconut. I just want to clean it out and be able to clang them together like they do in Monty Python. Plus, you get coconut milk. I gues I could just buy a fake one, but what would be the fun of that?

I got it open! I just used the back of a hammer and its split in two halves now

Forget it Gilligan, they got it open. You can go back to the lagoon little buddy.